Paul Cooke (University of Leeds) describes his film-education project ‘Using Film to Examine Heritage, Identity and Global Citizenship’: supporting the work of the Bautzen Memorial to Engage New Audiences’

Fondation Royaumont, Val d’Oise, France 16-17 January 2015

By Michael Northcott, m.northcott@ed.ac.uk

A Franco-British Research Workshop of grant holders from the AHRC’s Care for the Future grant call and LABEX’s (Laboratory of Excellence) grant call ‘Les passes dans le present: histoire, patrimoine, memoire’ was held at the former Cistercian Abbey of Royaumont 20 miles north of Paris in January 2015. The Abbey was built in the thirteenth century and patronised by Louis XIV. It is situated in a large walled enclosure of gardens, water features and stone buildings. Over the centuries the monks instituted some remarkable hydrological features. Continue reading →

AHRC Care for the Future: Thinking Forward through the Past and Labex Pasts in the Present: History, Heritage, Memory are holding a series of three joint workshops in 2015. The workshops seek to bring together researchers, ECRs and practitioners/professionals from project teams across the two programmes for two days of ideas exchange and discussion on shared themes.

The first workshop took place at the Royaumont Foundation near Paris on 16th and 17th January 2015. Please see the programme here.

Between cultural and natural heritage

“Fairytale castle”, chateau Chenonceau. Photo: Marianna Dudley.

Chenonceau is a chateau worthy of a fairytale princess. It has turrets and gardens and galleries – and a river running through it. Built between 1514 and 1522 on the site of an old mill, it became the home of Diane de Poitiers, mistress of King Henry II. Diane loved the chateau, and built the bridge over the river. On Henry’s death in 1559, his widow Catherine de Medici demanded that Diane exchange Chenonceau for her chateau Charmont. Catherine built the galleries upon Diane’s bridge, and ruled France as regent from the building. Renaissance intrigues, not fairytales, brought this building to life.

In 1913, government passed a long forgotten piece of legislation – the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act. The title of the act may have been commonplace but the results were certainly not, for it paved the way for the creation of the historic environment we know and enjoy today.

Fast forward a century. In 2013, government is poised to take less, not more responsibility for preserving our historic monuments and buildings. The answer to this retreat is widely felt to lie in the built heritage sector redefining its relationship with the public. But what would that entail?

Imagine a Britain without Stonehenge or Hadrian’s Wall. Imagine our historic landscape no longer embellished by great castles, cathedrals or country houses. This imagined present could easily have been a reality had it not been for the 1913 Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act.